


Like Swallowing Fire

by Dikhotomia



Series: Whumptober 2k19: FE3H Edition [21]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Again, Day 21 Laced Drink, Edelgard is just having a really bad time, F/F, I Tried, Poisoning, This is why we shouldn't be letting Hubert play with chemicals while the slithers are around
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-31 20:36:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21151841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dikhotomia/pseuds/Dikhotomia
Summary: "The tea is sweeter than normal with a tang that leaves her tongue and throat tingling. Her brows knit together as she peers down at it, eyes flicking from it to Hubert beside her. "Is this a new blend?" She asks him, setting the cup down on the saucer. "I'm not sure I enjoy it."His immediate discomfort heightens her own, his expression shifting from the norm to something nearing abject horror. "No, Lady Edelgard," he whispers, reaching for her wrist to keep her from lifting the cup again (she wasn't about to not with him wearing that look, but she doesn't begrudge him his paranoia). "It is not." Ingrid and Sylvain move from their spots by the door, sensing the sudden shift in the air."OREdelgard gets poisoned





	Like Swallowing Fire

The tea is sweeter than normal with a tang that leaves her tongue and throat tingling. Her brows knit together as she peers down at it, eyes flicking from it to Hubert beside her. "Is this a new blend?" She asks him, setting the cup down on the saucer. "I'm not sure I enjoy it."

His immediate discomfort heightens her own, his expression shifting from the norm to something nearing abject horror. "No, Lady Edelgard," he whispers, reaching for her wrist to keep her from lifting the cup again (she wasn't about to not with him wearing that look, but she doesn't begrudge him his paranoia). "It is not." Ingrid and Sylvain move from their spots by the door, sensing the sudden shift in the air.

"Is everything all right?" Ingrid asks, a few steps ahead of Sylvain and beside her before she realizes it. The answer she has in mind isn't the one she says, her tongue suddenly leaden and useless, whatever she thinks slurring out as the world tilts on it's axis. The tingle blossoms into a burn that spreads from her throat to her limbs, igniting each and every nerve as it does. It's agony but she can't scream, her lungs seizing in her chest as she tips -

Glass shatters, a spear rings off the marble and Edelgard expects to hit the floor, but Ingrid is quicker and the pressure of her arms hurts. It makes her whine, high and breathless, hands grasping uselessly at her throat and her chest and her clothes all of which are too restricting.

Hubert is yelling, Sylvain is gone, door ajar in his wake. Ingrid is talking but Edelgard can't hear past the blood rushing in her ears. She coughs and it hurts more, making her wheeze wet and sickening on an inhale. Everything twists in on itself, her vision a blurring, swimming haze. She feels like she'd fighting through deep water, and trying to breathe it too, coughing out as much liquid as she is sucking it back in.

Blood? She doesn't know, can't see well enough to tell, can't taste anything anymore anyway.

"Tea---laced--" Hubert swims into her line of sight, Ingrid's hands grasping her wrists and holding her and she thinks she must have been doing something concerning aside from struggling to breathe, to stay conscious, to do _anything_ beyond suffer through whatever this is. Ingrid replies and Hubert's next words are as harsh as Ingrid's were accusatory.

Feeling drains away next, the white hot nerve fraying agony overwhelming any sensation, drilling deeper until it's consumed every inch of her from her skin to her bones, taking root in the very marrow that fills them. It's like she's being eaten alive by acid from the inside out and she longs for the darkness of unconsciousness.

Even death would be preferable.

Death, she assumes between the wave of panic and desperation, would be a likely outcome.

Mercedes replaces Hubert just as she blacks out and everything stops all at once.

_Everything._

She wakes slow, breaching into a haze that clears bit by bit into a muddled clarity. Her body tingles, the aftermath of whatever ravaged her system still singing in her nerves. She doesn't try to move, doesn't think she can. Not yet. Several more things come to her after that, the familiarity of her bedroom, the comfort of the bed beneath her and the faces that surround.

Petra, Sylvain, Ingrid and Ladislava all stand guard at different parts of the room, all wary, all gripping their weapons like they're expecting an actual attack. Hubert is absent, Mercedes and Dorothea swim in and out of her peripheral, both looking pale and concerned. She wants to ask what happened, but her voice doesn't work, brows knitting in frustration when all that comes out is a quiet wheeze that sounds almost like a question.

The reaction is immediate, Mercedes is at her side, hand cool on her fevered skin. The other woman frowns, turning to the room proper and shaking her head in a manner that could only mean she still wasn't in good shape. Out of the woods, perhaps, but not much better than that.

"You were poisoned, your majesty," Ingrid says, and Edelgard is relieved that she can hear again, that her senses at least have returned to her in part. "It was something Hubert was experimenting with."

"Obviously it wasn't Hubie who did it," Dorothea interjects, occupying the space on the other side of the bed. "He assumes it was probably one of Those Who Slither, they must have slipped it in somehow while he wasn't looking."

Edelgard frowns, making a note to inform Hubert he was no longer allow to play with poisons. Though she was almost certain after this he would have already gotten rid of them all. She doesn't bothering making a second attempt to speak, simply canting her head a little as her eyes return to Ingrid.

"Hubert is still looking in to what happened," her knight continues. "We're lucky he had the antidote on hand, but the damage it did was still pretty bad." Meaning she'd be out of commission, weak and stuck in bed or in the Palace with all of her guards constantly on hand. It was infuriating, and she wonders just who was responsible. Thales still needed her, Solon and Kronya were dead. She hadn't seen Cornelia in nearly a year.

It meant it was someone in the lower rings, or someone not even related.

"Fortunately," Mercedes starts, smiling. Ever smiling, even when she was sad. "Since you have a Crest it will accelerate the healing time, and I'll be able to help you along too! If you want me to."

Edelgard nods.

"Everything you eat or drink will be prepared by or supervised by one of us," Ingrid begins again. "Until we find out who did this."

She reaches, fumbling until she catches the armor of Ingrid's forearm, holding and hoping the other woman understands what she implies. "You want something?" she asks, leaning down and Edelgard shakes her head. She's forced to wait while the Knight tries to figure out her request, her eyes finally widening with a small 'oh!'

"I'm not going anywhere, don't worry."

She relaxes, withdrawing her hand.

"You should get some more sleep," Mercedes says. "We'll stay here with you so you won't be alone when you wake up."

"Edie has plenty of space for us to all get comfortable," Dorothea agrees, settling down on the edge of the bed beside her. "Looks like we'll all be staying in your space of the Palace for now, huh."

Her lips twitch, eyes slipping closed. She's still so tired...

So she let's herself go.

She's safe, after all.


End file.
